Programming Forums - io programming language

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io programming language

Hey everyone,

Has anyone ever tried out the Io programming language? I've looked at the site, and was thinking maybe I should try learning it as my first "real" programming language. Apparently it is easier than Python, and is small, portable, and fast. From the io site:

Quote:

Io is a small, prototype-based programming language. The ideas in Io are mostly inspired by Smalltalk (all values are objects), Self (prototype-based), NewtonScript (differential inheritance), Act1 (actors and futures for concurrency), LISP (code is a runtime inspectable/modifiable tree) and Lua (small, embeddable).

features open source BSD license
small VM (~10K C statements, 5K Io specific)
reasonably fast (comparable to Python, Perl, Ruby)
incremental collector, weak links
dynamic typing
exceptions
C99 implementation
embeddable
multi-state (multiple VMs can run in the same application)
actor-based concurrency, coroutines
64 bit clean

Anyone think its worth giving a shot?

You may have more difficulty getting help with an obscure language. Also, will find that you have to write your own code in situations where you would be able to use a module/library in another language. For instance, python comes with numerous modules (such as pickle) which allow you to achieve common tasks with ease, and there are many others available on the web (BeautifulSoup comes to mind).

On the other hand, after learning any programming language others come much more easily. Additionally, it will be to your educational benefit not to use the aforementioned modules but rather to write your own code.

Personally, I think that starting on a leaf at the far reaches of an obscure branch of a recognizable tree is the wrong approach. Strictly personal opinion based upon many observations. You might very well be the exception that proves the rule.

I'd suggest going with something a bit more mainstream for your first "real" language, especially , if you intend on writing code as a profession. Once you learn a standard/well used language and are comfortable with the information, move out into those unexplored areas like IO, etc.